Download Gottman, John M., and Nan Silver. (1999). “Coping with typical

Gottman, John M., and Nan Silver. (1999). “Coping with typical solvable problems,” in The
seven principles for making marriages work (Chapter Nine, 186-216). New York: Three Rivers
Press (Random House, Inc.).
Work stress, in-laws, money, sex, housework, a new baby: These are the most typical areas of
marital conflict. These issues are perennials even in very happy and stable marriages because
they touch upon some of marriage’s most important work. Every marriage is faced with certain
emotional tasks that husband and wife need to accomplish together for the marriage to grow and
deepen.
These tasks come down to attaining a rich understanding between husband and wife. A marriage
needs this understanding so both people feel safe and secure in it — like a port in the storm of
life. When there’s conflict in one of these six common areas, usually it’s because husband and
wife have different ideas about these tasks, their importance, or how they should be
accomplished.
If the conflict is perpetual, no amount of problem-solving savvy will fix it. The tension will
deescalate only when you both feel comfortable living with your ongoing difference. When the
issue is solvable, the challenge is to find the right strategy for conquering it.
Discussed below are the six hottest spots, the task they each represent for a marriage, and
practical advice for addressing the solvable disagreements they often trigger.
STRESS AND MORE STRESS
The task: Making your marriage a place of peace.
Too often wives and husbands bring their work stress home, and it sabotages their marriage.
Today’s couples work an average of one thousand hours more each year than people did thirty
years ago.
Solution Acknowledge that at the end of a long, stressful day you may need time to yourselves to
decompress before interacting with each other. If you are feeling suddenly outraged by something
your spouse did, realize that the incident may be overblown in your mind because you’re feeling
so tense. If your spouse comes home with a cloud over his head and your “What’s wrong?” gets
answered with a snarl, try not to take it personally. He or she probably just had a bad day. Rather
than making the situation worse by lashing out, let it go.
Build time to unwind into your daily schedule. Make it a ritual, whether it entails lying on your
bed and reading your mail, going for a jog, or meditating. Some couples find that the easiest way
to relax is to enlist each other’s help. Once you’re both feeling relatively composed, it’s time to
come together and talk about each other’s day. Consider this a sanctioned whining session during
which each person gets to complain about any catastrophes that occurred while the other is
understanding and supportive. Such griping sessions can prevent the spillover of everyday stress
into your marriage.
RELATIONS WITH IN-LAWS
The task: Establishing a sense of “we-ness, “ or solidarity, between husband and wife.
Most of the real family tension here is more frequently between the wife and her mother-in-law.
The differences between the two women’s opinions, personalities, and life views become evident
the more time they spend together. At the core of the tension is a turf battle between the two
women for the husband’s love.
The wife is watching to see whether her husband backs her or his mother. She is wondering,
“Which family are you really in?” Often the mother is asking the same question. The man just
wishes the two women could get along better. He loves them both and does not want to have to
choose.
Solution The only way out of this is for the husband to side with his wife against his mother.
One of the basic tasks of a marriage is to establish a sense of “we-ness” between husband and
wife. The husband must let his mother know that his wife comes first. His house is his and his
wife’s house, not his mother’s. He is a husband first, then a son.
Eventually his mother will probably adjust to the reality that her son’s family unit, where he is
the husband, takes precedence to him over all others. It is absolutely critical for the marriage that
the husband be firm about this, even if he feels unfairly put upon and even if his mother cannot
accept the new reality.
He should not do anything that he feels demeans and dishonors his parents or goes against his
basic values. He should not compromise who he is. But he has to stand with his wife and not in
the middle. He and his wife need to establish their own family rituals, values, and lifestyle and
insist that his mother and father respect them.
For this reason, creating or renewing your sense of solidarity with your spouse may involve some
rending and tearing away from your primary families. An important part of putting your spouse
first and building this sense of solidarity is not to tolerate any contempt toward your spouse from
your parents.
Try not to be defensive if your spouse perceives a problem and you don’t. Remember that much
about relationships has to do with perception. So, for example, if your wife believes that you side
with your mother against her, that’s something you need to work on in your marriage, even if you
don’t agree with her perception of the situation.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
The task: Balancing the freedom and empowerment money represents with the security and trust
it also symbolizes.
Many couples often confront significant money conflicts that are evidence of a perpetual issue,
since money is symbolic of many emotional needs — such as for security and power — and goes
to the core of our individual value system. The key to resolving simpler, solvable problems is to
first understand a marriage’s task in this area. While money buys pleasure, it also buys security.
Balancing these realities can be work for any couple, since our feelings about money and value
are so personal and often idiosyncratic.
Solution Some clearheaded budgeting is called for.
What’s most important in terms of your marriage is that you work as a team on financial issues
and that you express your concerns, needs, and fantasies to each other before coming up with a
plan. Make sure you don’t end up with a budget that forces either of you to become a martyr.
This will only build up resentment. You’ll each need to be firm about items that you consider
nonnegotiable.
Step 1: Itemize Your Current Expenditures
If possible, both of you should use the same list of expenditures.
Step 2: Manage Everyday Finances
1. Write down every expense that you consider essential for your sense of happiness and wellbeing.
2. Look carefully at your income and assets. Try to create a budget that allows you to manage
everyday finances and other “essentials” based on your means.
3. Come up with a plan for paying bills on a regular basis. Determine who writes the checks and
when, and who balances the checkbook.
4. Discuss your lists and plans with each other. Look for common ground between your
approaches. Decide on a workable strategy that allows both of you to meet your “essential”
needs. Sit down and revisit your plan in a few months to make sure it’s working for both of you.
Step 3: Plan Your Financial Future
1. Imagine your life 5,10, 20, or 30 years from now. What would be your ideal circumstance?
Think of things you want (house, and so on) and the kind of life you would ideally like to lead.
Also think through the kinds of financial disasters you would most want to avoid.
2. List your long-term financial goals, taking into account what you most desire and what you
most fear.
3. Share your lists with each other. Look for similarities in your long-term goals. Discuss your
perspectives.
4. Come up with a long-range financial plan that will help you both meet your goals. Revisit this
plan periodically to make sure you’re still in agreement.
SEX
The task: Fundamental appreciation and acceptance of each other.
No area of a couple’s life offers more potential for embarrassment, hurt, and rejection than sex.
No wonder couples find it such a challenge to communicate about the topic clearly. When
communication is fraught with tension, then frustration and hurt feelings too often result. So
often when a husband and wife talk to each other about their sexual needs, their conversations are
indirect, imprecise, inconclusive. The problem is that the less clear you are about what you do
and don’t want, the less likely you are to get it.
The goal of sex is to be closer, to have more fun, to feel satisfied, and to feel valued and accepted
in this very tender area of your marriage. Sex can be such a fun way to share with each other and
deepen your sense of intimacy.
Solution Learn to talk to each other about sex in a way that lets you both feel safe. That means
learning the right way to ask for what you want, and the appropriate way to react to your spouse’s
requests. If you are on the receiving end of your partner’s request, try very hard not to see it as an
implied criticism of your attractiveness, sexual virility, lovemaking skill, or innermost being.
Try to have the same attitude as a professional cook. A chef isn’t insulted if a customer isn’t in
the mood for bouillabaisse tonight or has an aversion to Dungeness crab. Instead he or she makes
accommodations that will satisfy the customer’s palate.
This doesn’t mean that you have to agree to all of your partner’s requests. It is up to both of you
to decide what you feel okay and safe doing and what you don’t. Sexuality is incredibly
malleable, so it is really possible to make accommodations to each other’s desires that will be
pleasurable to both of you.
Because most people feel so vulnerable about whether they are attractive to their spouse and a
“good” lover, the key to talking about sex is to be very gentle. When you talk to your partner
about sex, your attitude should always be that you are making a very good thing even better.
Even if you aren’t satisfied with your current sex life, you need to accentuate the positive.
The best way to enrich your love life is to learn about each other’s likes and take the time to
remember and memorize these things, and to use this knowledge in the way you do what you do.
Often expectations get in the way of an optimum love life.
Not all sex has to be of the same quality or intensity. Sometimes it will feel like you’ve touched
each other to the core of your souls. Other times it will just be pleasant. Sometimes sex is slow,
sometimes it’s brief. Variety can and ought to exist in a sexual relationship. But there do have to
be times when sex is an expression of love. The more often this occurs, the better.
A major characteristic of couples who have a happy sex life is that they see lovemaking as an
expression of intimacy but they don’t take any differences in their needs or desires personally.
A huge problem in this area is a lack of basic knowledge about sex. It leads people to base their
expectations for their own performance from informal and unreliable sources, mostly those heard
from friends during adolescence. The result is often that we judge ourselves quite harshly and
feel that we are not very good in bed.
Another problem with the lack of basic knowledge is that we presume we know about one
another’s anatomy and sexual physiology when we have never learned about these things
anywhere. We wouldn’t think to run a new, complex, modern appliance without at least glancing
at the manual. But in the area of sexuality, we do.
HOUSEWORK
The task: Creating a sense of fairness and teamwork.
Men often don’t realize how deeply women care about keeping their home in order and don’t
understand why housework is such a big deal to their wives. As a general rule, women are much
more concerned about order and cleanliness than are men. When a husband doesn’t do his
agreed-upon share of the housework, the wife usually feels disrespected and unsupported.
Inevitably this leads to resentment and a less satisfying marriage.
Many men think housework is a woman’s job. When the husband helps, he feels he should be
applauded — instead his wife demands he do more, which makes him defensive and likely to do
less. A major cause of this unfortunate dynamic is that most men tend to overestimate the amount
of housework they do.
Solution Men have to do more housework! Sometimes men shirk their responsibility in this
department due to a sheer lack of motivation. Gottman says that Women find a man’s willingness
to do housework extremely erotic. When the husband does his share to maintain the home, both
he and his wife report a more satisfying sex life than in marriages where the wife believes her
husband is not doing his share.
There are two key factors here. The first is whether the husband does his chores without his wife
having to ask (nag). A husband who does this earns enormous points in the emotional bank
account.
The other factor is whether he is flexible in his duties in response to her needs. For example, if he
sees that she’s especially tired one night, does he volunteer to wash the dishes even though it’s
her turn? This conveys that all-important honor and respect for her which is a real serious turn-on
for many women.
In these relationships the women also have significantly lower heart rates during marital
arguments, which means they are less likely to begin a discussion harshly and so avoid triggering
that whole downward spiral of conflict involving the four horsemen and flooding that leads to
divorce.
The key is not the actual amount he does but his wife’s subjective view of whether it’s enough.
How much is “enough” depends on the wife.
The best way to figure out how much housework a husband needs to do is for the couple to talk
over a list of all the things that need to be done on an ongoing basis (consult the list in the text).
By itemizing exactly who does what, you’ll finally have an objective basis for determining who
should do what.
Use the list to describe to each other first your perception of how things are currently handled by
whom and then how you would like them to be. You may find that certain patterns emerge.
Men often believe that they are doing a larger share of domestic chores than is actually the case.
In many marriages the husband does more of the “brute strength” tasks like washing the car or
mowing the lawn, or the abstract jobs like financial planning that don’t have to be done on a
daily basis or on a strict timetable.
The wife carries more than her share of the mindless, daily drudge work — like cleaning and
picking up — which leaves her feeling resentful.
BECOMING PARENTS
The task: Expanding your sense of “we-ness” to include your children.
Virtually every study that has looked at how people make the transition from couplehood to
parenthood confirms that having a baby sets off seismic changes in a marriage. Most of the time
those changes are for the worse. In the year after the first baby arrives, 70 percent of wives
experience a precipitous plummet in their marriage satisfaction. There are wide-ranging reasons
for this deep disgruntlement — lack of sleep, feeling overwhelmed and unappreciated, the
awesome responsibility of caring for such a helpless little creature, juggling mothering with a
job, economic stress, and lack of time to oneself, among other things. For the husband, the
dissatisfaction usually kicks in later, as a reaction to his wife’s unhappiness.
The big mystery is why the other 30+ percent just seem to sail through the transition to
motherhood unscathed. (In fact, some of these mothers say their marriage has never been better.)
What separates these blissful mothers from the rest has nothing to do with whether their baby is
colicky or a good sleeper, whether they are nursing or bottle-feeding, working or staying home.
Rather, it has everything to do with whether the husband experiences the transformation to
parenthood along with his wife or gets left behind.
Having a baby almost inevitably causes a metamorphosis in the new mom. She has never felt a
love as deep and selfless as the one she feels for her child. Almost always a new mom
experiences nothing less than a profound reorientation of meaning in her life. She finds she is
willing to make enormous sacrifices for her child. She feels awe and wonder at the intensity of
her feelings for her fragile child. The experience is so life-altering that if her husband doesn’t go
through it with her, it is understandable that distance would develop between them.
While the wife is embracing a new sense of “we-ness” that includes their child, the husband may
still be pining for the old “us.” He can’t help but resent how little time she seems to have for him
now, how tired she always is, how often she’s preoccupied with feeding the baby. He loves his
child, but he wants his wife back.
Solution It’s simple. He can’t get his wife back — he has to follow her into the new realm she
has entered. He has to have his own metamorphosis. Only then can their marriage continue to
grow. In marriages where the husband is able to do this, he doesn’t resent his child. He no longer
feels like only a husband, but like a father, too. He feels pride, tenderness, and protectiveness
toward his offspring.
How can a couple ensure that the husband is transformed along with his wife? First, the couple
need to remember that marriage and family are not diametrically opposed — they are of one
cloth.
While the couple should spend time away from the baby occasionally, they will find that they
can’t stop talking about the baby, nor should they, if they are making this transition well together.
The important thing is that they are in it together. To the extent that both husband and wife make
this philosophical shift, the parent-child relationship and the marriage thrive. The following
items are some other tips to help couples stay connected as they evolve into parents.
Focus on your marital friendship. Before the baby comes, make sure that you really know each
other and your respective worlds intimately. The more of a team you are now, the easier the
transition will be. If a husband knows his wife, he will he in better tune with her as she begins
her journey to motherhood.
Don’t exclude Dad from baby care. Often, in her exuberance, a new mother comes off as a
know-it-all to her husband. While she pays lip service to the idea that they should share the
baby’s care, she casts herself into a supervisory role, constantly directing — if not ordering —
the new father and even chastising him if he doesn’t do things exactly her way. In the face of this
barrage, some husbands are more than happy to withdraw, to cede the role of expert to their
wives (after all, their own fathers never knew anything about babies, either) and accept their own
incompetence. The sad result is that they do less and less and therefore become less and less
accomplished and confident in caring for their own child. Inevitably, they begin to feel more
excluded.
The new mom needs to back off and realize that there’s more than one way to burp a baby. She
should remember that the baby is his child too and will benefit from experiencing more than one
parenting style. If the mother feels her husband’s approach is really unsafe, she should direct him
to their pediatrician or some other edifying baby-care guide. Some small, well-timed doses of
gentle advice-giving are fine (don’t forget to use a softened startup), but lectures and criticism
will backfire.
Feeding time can be especially difficult. Couples can find a role for the new dad in the rituals of
feeding. There is much that he can share in carrying, holding, burping, and comforting the mother
and baby.
Let Dad be baby’s playmate. Men may take longer to “bond” with their children because
women tend to be more nurturing toward children while men are more playful. Men assume you
can’t really play with a helpless baby so they don’t engage their child for much of the crucial first
year. Dads who spend time with their infants discover that newborns can be great playmates. The
father who gets to know his babies by bathing, diapering, and feeding them will inevitably find
that they love to play with him and that he has a special role in their lives.
Carve out time for the two of you. Part of the transition to parenthood entails placing a priority
(albeit usually second place) on the marriage itself. So you should use a baby-sitter, a relative, or
friend to get some time alone with each other.
You haven’t failed if you spend a lot of your “dates” discussing the baby — you’ve succeeded.
As the baby grows into a toddler and then becomes school-aged, this pattern will decrease in your
conversations.
Be sensitive to Dad’s needs. Even if he is a good team player and is making the philosophical
shift toward parenthood along with his wife, he is still going to feel somewhat deprived by the
baby’s overwhelming and seemingly endless need for her. Even if, intellectually, he understands
that the baby’s needs supplant his own in priority, he’s going to miss his wife. The more she
acknowledges what he has given up and lets him know how central he still is to her life, the more
understanding and supportive he will be. If she never has any time for just the marriage, he will
tend to withdraw from the relationship.
Give Mom a break. For all the daily wonders a mother experiences during the newborn stage,
she is also likely to be exhausted. It will help their marriage if her husband will modify his work
hours so he can come home earlier and on the weekends take over for her now and then so that
she can get a needed break to sleep, see a friend, or a movie, or do whatever else she needs to feel
part of the world again.
Couples who follow this advice will discover that parenthood doesn’t drag down their
relationship but elevates it to a new level of closeness, understanding, and love for each other.
SAMPLE EXAM ITEMS
ONE. According to Gottman, what is a marriage’s task for the area of sex?
a. establishing a sense of “we-ness, “ or solidarity, between husband and wife
b. expanding your sense of “we-ness” to include each other
c. creating a sense of fairness and teamwork
d. balancing the freedom and empowerment sex represents with the security and trust it also
symbolizes
e. fundamental appreciation and acceptance of each other
f. making your marriage a place of peace
TWO. According to Gottman, the thing that is most important in the area of financial issues in
terms of your marriage is that you work as a team and that you express which of the following
things to each other before coming up with a plan?
1.
2.
3.
4.
your fantasies
your concerns
your nonnegotiables
your needs
5. your wants
6. your desires
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
2, 4, 5, and 6
2, 3 and 4
1, 3, 5, and 6
2 and 4
1, 2, 4, 5, and 6